Talking to a young lady from China in Skypeland the other day was quite interesting. She knew English well and was quite talkative. She did not like to talk about politics, but had strong political views. She thought that it was unfair of China to be asked to raise its exchange rate by the US and Germany. I pointed out that the reason China gets money is that the rest of the world pays China for products. And to be fair, China must obey the trade rules that the rest of the world obeys. She was somewhat doubtful about this, and claimed it was only fair that China be allowed to catch up to the rest of the world, and to get even for the foreign powers robbing China 100 or 200 years ago. I told her that foreign countries were bad to China decades or centuries ago, but that does not excuse their bad behavior now. She thought I was rude for saying this. I tried to convince her but I think she did not understand. I did forget to ask her about Chinese violation of intellectual property laws. Well maybe next time, although this would probably upset her.
She asked what blood type I was. I said I was type A. She was shocked, since she is also blood type A, and she thought that type A had many good personality features associated with it. She did not want to share the same blood type as me. I said I did not believe in a blood type theory of personality, but many countries liked to put an emphasis on blood types; there is even a company in Japan that sells condoms matched for different blood types. She said she also did not believe in the blood type theory, but she found it interesting. Ah ok, so that is why she asked...
I asked her about censorship in China, and she was uncomfortable answering about journalists in prison or internet censorship. I said I do not blame her; I would not answer such questions either if I lived in China. I would be afraid to answer.
She said that the US did not help the UK in World War II, and just sold the UK and Russia weapons in World War II to make money. I disagreed and she became angry. I pointed out that she does not get the full story in China because of censorship and lack of access to full information. She disagreed vehemently, and said Chinese people knew all the true and correct information about all subjects, including Tiannamen Square, Taiwan, Tibet, the second world war and other world events and history. I disagreed. She was so upset at this point that she logged off.
Later she told a friend that she found me scary and intimidating:
Z:is he crazy?
Z: oh my god ?
M: he is very intelligent with PHD in physics
Z: :D but i thins he is not smart in enough
Z: bad temper
Z: oh my god ~ he just like a master of the world
Z: my god
Z: why talk about china?
M: he talks about all the countries not just china
Later she said that I am just awful like all Americans, and talked about how the Americans were bad to China and had invaded China along with the Japanese. She said:
M: she said your attitude is scary and intimidating
Bob in MD says: haha
Bob in MD says: why
M: and she said you love to talk about the sensitive and unnecessary topics
M: she was a lot complaining about you
Interesting...However, I wonder when exactly she believes that the US invaded China?
Friday, September 7, 2007
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